Implicit, LLC v. The Home Depot, Inc. et al., Civil Action No. 1:22-cv-02476-VMC (N.D. Ga. June 21, 2022)

On June 21, 2022, Plaintiff Implicit, LLC filed suit against Defendants The Home Depot, Inc., Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., Home Depot Solutions, LLC, Home Depot Store Support, Inc., and Home Depot Product Authority, LLC in the Northern District of Georgia (Atlanta Division) for patent infringement. Plaintiff owns U.S. Patent No. 8,856,185 (the “‘185 Patent”), entitled “Method and System for Attribute Management in a Namespace” which was issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on October 7, 2014. The ‘185 Patent generally relates to computer systems and methods to manage access to information using object attributes and resolved “technical problems related to managing access to data structures to locate the object, particularly problems related to flexibility in the handling of object attributes and views into the namespace.”

In a preemptive strike against anticipated challenges to the ‘185 Patent under 15 U.S.C. 101, Plaintiff alleges that the claims of the ‘185 Patent “do not merely recite the performance of some well-known business practice from the pre-Internet world along with the requirement to perform it on the Internet” and that the claims of the ‘185 Patent “recite inventive concepts that are not merely routine or conventional” but that “provide a new and novel solution to specific problems related to improving data management and access therein.” The Complaint alleges that Defendants directly infringes one or more claims of the ‘185 Patent through its website and computer systems, which allegedly “perform a method for storing information that implements a namespace having a plurality of objects,” as set forth in a claim chart submitted as Exhibit B. Plaintiff seeks damages for Defendants’ infringement in addition to a declaration that the case is exceptional pursuant to 35 U.S.C. 285 and an award of attorney’s fees. The case has been assigned to Judge Victoria Marie Calvert.